Prologue:
In a place where shadows grow like trees and fire dots the mountainside like flowers, citizens of the Capitol have made fortresses of melted stone. They were the last survivors of Panem. They were not only from the Capitol itself, but Districts 1 and 2... and they hated nothing more than a little girl with a golden pin.
There were as many of them now as there once were in the Capitol. In fury, and in spite, they decided that the Hunger Games are not over. They kidnap the children of the Districts every year and throw them into a new Hunger Games, just to remind the Rebels that the Capitol isn't gone. They make their own little Hunger Games, in the graveyard of what used to be North America.
Rosa was only ten when they arose for the first time and declared war on the new inhabitants of the capitol. She was eleven when they seized the capitol back and by the time she is fifteen, they have beaten the districts back down, killing everyone who stands in their way. They are in full power now, all over again.
And they want revenge.
The new president grinned savagely into the cameras. His image was spitting out onto every wall in Panem, and he seemed to glow with power and hatred.
"You thought you could overpower us," he sneered. He straightened his suit, and readjusted the rose pinned to his pocket. The rose was white with splatters of red on it. No one wanted to think about the red. "You thought you could OVERCOME us, did you? For twenty-five years, we have lain in wait. And now, you know you can never defeat us." He paused, and then he bares his teeth in a cruel twisted mockery of a smile.
They knew what this was. This broadcast meant they had finally lost. And as an overwhelming blossom of defeat settled over the people in Panem, the new president continued. "Welcome to the new days. As there was before, there is a game. But this is a new game this year. Welcome to the Graveyard Games, ladies and gentlemen. Each district now gets to send us two little girls, and two little boys. Any child of the leading rebels based on rank will have up to one hundred times more slips than those not." He grinned again, and this time Katniss felt as though he was looking right at her. She couldn't help it. She turned her face into Peeta's shirt, and cried. Rosa and Ash were out in the woods today. Rosa was teaching him how to make a bow.
"It's OK," Peeta whispered into her hair. "It'll be OK."
Chapter 1:
I rolled my shoulders, popping them tiredly, and looked upwards into the trees. Finally, I spotted a good branch. About five feet long, straight, and just over an inch thick. I pointed it out to Ash. He grinned a toothy grin, and scrambled fifteen feet up in to the tree. He took out a knife and started hitting the branch with it. I rolled my eyes. He was only twelve, but you'd think the boy would know how to use a knife...
"Ash, try using the serrated end," I said calmly. He looked at it, then grinned again and used the two inches of knife closest to the hilt, sawing away at the branch. It fell down from the tree as I sidestepped lightly out of it's way. He jumped out of the tree in what he was intending to be a graceful leap, but ended up doing more of a flailing-fall-landing-on-his-feet. I smirked at him, and he just grinned back completely unperturbed.
A huge siren picked up. My head snapped back over to where the fence was, built up to keep the animals out but with a gate to let us in either way.
The siren is five years old, ever since the war picked back up. Any time anything dangerous was near, or an important announcement was being made, it went off. I gnawed on my lip, but considering the lack of people running around screaming I decided it was just an announcement; Mom would tell us when we got back. Ash tilted his head, shrugged then looked back at me.
"Now what?" he asked.
"Cut it off where it forks, so you just have the straight part," I said. He did so. "Now trim off all the branches, and peel away the bark. While you do that, I'm gonna go ask what's going on with the whole siren thing." I made my way up the little slope to the gate, and pushed my way through. I walked across the meadow, over to where the houses began in the poorer side of town. I knocked on a door, and a girl I knew from school answered.
"Hi, Belle," I said. "What's up with the siren? What's the announcement?" I noticed her face was splotchy, and the blonde curls framing her face were damp just ever so slightly. Wet streaks went down her cheeks, and her brown eyes watched me, sad, and red, and puffy. She'd been crying. "What's wrong?" I asked, hugging her on reflex.
"Rosa," she cried into my shoulder. "They did it." I pulled back and looked at her face again. Then with a sickening lurch in my stomach, I knew what she meant. The people from the capitol had won. We had lost. I hugged her again. "They're doing the Hunger Games again," she sobbed. "Except- except- they're worse."
As soon as those words were out of her mouth, I noticed a hiss in the air. The hiss of a breaking train, one of the nice bullet trains from the capitol. What had seemed luxurious and amazing to me in my childhood looked like a serpent taking up the track now, with glowing red eyes reflecting off the metal in front of it. The doors opened with a hiss, and men in blue outfits poured out of the door and into the streets. They banged into houses, and screams started coming.
"ASH!" I screamed, letting go of Belle. I ran for the meadow, looking over my shoulder at her. "Hide, Belle!" I turned back and poured on more speed, barrelling through the gate and down the hill. "ASH!" I screamed. He looked up, startled, only halfway done shaving the bark off of his would-be bow.
"Ro-" he got cut off as I slammed into him and pushed him behind a tree.
"Capitol won," I hissed in his ear. "They're back. Everything's going back to that nightmare Dad talks about." His eyes widened in horror. Mom had told us about the Hunger Games, and when she couldn't speak anymore, Dad did. I hugged Ash tightly to my chest, listening to the sound of gunfire that started up inside the fence. I heard footsteps and metal against metal as they forced their way through the gate. I prayed they wouldn't see us. My prayers went unanswered – they did.
They went down the path, waving their guns around like deranged monkeys. They spotted us.
They peeled Ash out of my arms, and despite my screams and protests, dragged us up the path and inside the fence. They shut and locked the gate, and hooked on a weird device that made the fence hum.
I remembered Mom telling us about sneaking out in the woods when she was younger, with a man we'd never met. How occasionally, the fence would hum with electricity. I took a sharp inward breath.
"Where do you live?" One of the men in blue snarled in my ear. I clamped my mouth shut. They twisted Ash's arm behind his back, and with a yelp he told him where we live.
"Victor's Circle!" he gasped out. They grinned devilishly, and let go of his arm. They pushed us up the street, through the square, back to the Victor's circle. I noticed an eerie silence as the last of the shots are fired. I saw people looking in terror out the windows as the peace keepers push us up to our house. I saw dead men in the street, holding guns and bows and arrows as though they had thought they could defend against the men in the blue. Their vacant expressions stared upwards, their eyes like pools reflecting the sky. Nothing but empty blue.
Mom was waiting at the door. I ran to her and wrapped my arms around her, Ash on her other side hugging Dad as he glared over our heads at the men in blue. I hadn't noticed until that minute how much grey was in his hair, and how old he was beginning to look. They pulled us into the house, and quietly locked the door behind us.
Then, the worst that can happen happened.
Mom cried.
So, I know alot of you guys will lose interest and leave right here at this chapter, and I have a request... well, obviously firstly that you don't leave, but mostly that you let me know why. I mean, it's just how it always works, that's how every story stats go, most people read through and go "awesome!", but a few people stop. So, I would like you to leave me a review saying why, so I could try to make it better. Thanks!